Look for the Light

When I was a child, the day after Thanksgiving was spent shopping for only one thing: that year’s Christmas tree. My parents took the two bench seats out of our minivan, and my sister and I climbed in the back, thrilled at the rebelliousness of riding in a vehicle not only without seatbelts but without seats. We popped our old cassette tape of Mahalia Jackson singing carols into the stereo because Christmas isn’t Christmas without Mahalia. And off we went, driving to the tree farm, the holiday spirit palpable all around us.

Once we arrived, my sister and I scampered out into the rows upon rows of evergreens while my dad got a saw from the tree farmer. He and my mom followed us, periodically shaking their heads when one of us found the perfect tree that also happened to be roughly ten feet tall. In the end, we always ended up with one that was a little wonky. Maybe its branches were rather scant on one side, or perhaps it was so fat that it was difficult to pass the strands of lights around it, or it was an extra-poky variety. But one thing is sure: we did always find the best tree for us.

The farmer shook the tree and bagged it for us before loading it into our minivan. My sister and I clambered in after it, making our annual attempt–and annual failure–to not get any sap on us during the drive home. Riding with the tree was never quite as glamorous as finding the tree, I must say.

When we got home, my mom and dad went straight to work pulling decorations out of the attic, my sister grabbed the Swiss Miss and some mugs, and I went to find our vinyl record of Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas.” We feverishly decked out the tree with the angel ornaments my great-grandparents bought for us each year, the wooden sleigh ornament my fourth-grade teacher gave me, all of our “first Christmas” ornaments, wreaths made from pipe cleaners and Froot Loops, and souvenirs from trips we’d taken. Finally, my sister put the angel on top of the tree, despite my perpetual hope that she had surpassed me in height since being the shortest was the requirement for this job.

***

The year I was married, my husband and I pulled out our respective boxes of Christmas decorations and hung them on the pre-lit artificial tree we’d purchased on clearance the previous year in anticipation of our first Christmas as young marrieds. (We saved money, saved time, and saved the planet, winning all around for a newlywed couple in graduate school.) I put Amy Grant’s Home for Christmas on the CD player, but we had finished decorating the tree before the album was even half finished. We stood back to look at it, severely underwhelmed by the sparseness. Both of us agreed that it really needed something else, if not quite a few somethings.

I headed to Target, where I purchased some traditional ball ornaments, tinsel (my husband’s request), and the most beautiful tree topper angel I could find. Upon my return to our apartment, we added the tinsel and shiny new balls and found ourselves much more satisfied with the tree’s festiveness. I excitedly unveiled my lovely angel and my husband started laughing, “You’re not putting an angel on top of the tree, are you?” he said. “It’s supposed to be a star!” As it turned out, in his family, it’s absolutely supposed to be a star. Having an angel at the top of the tree was just nonsense to him.

The star tree toppers at Target that year were less than impressive in my mind, and I was still firmly in the angel camp. But I wasn’t above careful compromise regarding such an important marital issue. So I pulled out some scrapbook paper, hopped onto Yahoo (I didn’t trust those Google folks yet), and looked up how to make origami stars. After an hour or so, I had a shiny, pearlescent, red-and-green star that, I thought, perfectly fit our tree. I’m relatively sure it wasn’t at all what my husband had in mind, but it became a tradition for our new family. Each year I carefully packed it at the bottom of the ornament boxes to keep it safe until the next Christmas.

I placed that origami star on our Christmas tree for more than a decade, during which time my husband and I bought a house, I gave birth to a son, my husband finished his doctorate, we sold said house, and we moved to a new state. Each year the ornaments multiplied as we cemented our own family traditions. We had to change where we hung the breakable ornaments once our son could walk; once he could hang his own ornaments, we had to redistribute them because he wanted to hang all of them on the same branch. Those cheap balls and the original tinsel, though, went up every year to remind us where we’d started.

This year, things are more than a bit different.

My husband filed for divorce this past October after more than a year of separation. When I excitedly asked my son if he was ready to decorate the tree, he said, “Nah, I already decorated at Daddy’s house. I’m fine.”

I figured I’d do it myself, then, because tradition. I dragged out that same pre-lit, artificial Christmas tree and plugged it in, only to discover that two-thirds of the lights didn’t work. I began at the top and started going through, light by light, to see if I could find the culprit. When I found it, the problem wasn’t a bulb but a wire that had been stripped and broken. After hastily unplugging it, I mentioned to my son that we’d have to go buy a new tree because the lights on this one didn’t work anymore.

“Why don’t you just take those lights off and buy new lights? The tree is still fine,” he said practically.

So I did. I spent four hours painstakingly cutting wires and unwrapping them from the tree branches, fake pine needles falling everywhere. When it was all said and done, I had sore hands, a giant pile of Christmas light clippings, and a very plain, very sad-looking fake tree.

Then I haphazardly tossed a new strand of lights around it, plugged it in, and wondered if a little bit of twinkle was enough. My son looked up from his book, eyes widening at the sight of the lights, and said, “Mommy! It’s Christmas!”

And so it is.

***

My ornaments are all patiently waiting, still in wonderful condition. But my heart is shattered this Christmas. I don’t believe I could handle taking them out of their careful wrapping and seeing that origami star beneath them right now. What I have–what I must look for–is the light.

Emmanuel. God with us.

God with me. In this season of waiting that ended not with a birth, but with a death, God is with me. Some days I can feel his presence, and other days I just catch a glimpse of light peeking through the shadows. I desperately cling to Christ’s promise of resurrection: not of my marriage, but of my soul.

If this Christmas finds you in the wilderness at midnight, broken and aching, “Arise, shine, for your light has come” (Isaiah 60:1, ESV).

Bethany Beams is an preschool/elementary office manager and certified doula who can’t get enough of storytelling, which she pursues through website design, photography, and freelance editing. Her many loves include her son, napping, libraries, ice cream, singing, snow leopards, Bagel Bites, 75° weather, the color turquoise, and lists. She blogs very occasionally at bethanybeams.com and designs all sorts of pretty things for Bethany Creates.

Photograph © Jasmin Schreiber, used with permission